


Collateral

by Unsentimentalf



Series: The Sherlock/John/Moriarty series [4]
Category: Sherlock BBC
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-10
Updated: 2011-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-15 14:06:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unsentimentalf/pseuds/Unsentimentalf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You kept me awake last night, Sherlock." Mycroft's hand tightened around the folder. "You and Jim Moriarty.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Collateral

**Author's Note:**

> Consequences and foreshadowings. Sequel Turning Point has now been posted.
> 
> Note; rating is for series. This part R.

"Don't try to bluff. You need me to find him."

Sherlock had leaned back in his chair, eyes on his brother, not the manilla folder under Mycroft's hand. John thought that he sounded a little less sure of himself than usual, but maybe that was projection. He himself found no comfort in Mycroft's questions.

"I am not yet sure that I want you finding him." Mycroft's little finger was tapping on the disputed papers as he leaned forward across the coffee table.  
"What, precisely, is your current relationship with Jim Moriarty, Sherlock?"

A snort of disdain. "Rather less unstable than your relationship with food. And I don't feel the need to throw up afterwards."

"That was uncalled for." A frown across Mycroft's eyes as he turned to John in the kitchen doorway. "What about you, Doctor Watson? Do you have anything to add?"

"What's in the folder?" Sherlock might deduce, but John had to ask.

"The preliminary report."

"Saying that?" John gestured to the muted TV. The headline hadn't changed all morning; "Essex Farmhouse Cult Explosion". A BBC reporter to camera dutifully recited over and again the contents of the police statement; the tiny religious cult, the charismatic leader, the security forces' arrival just too late.

"No." Mycroft didn't even glance towards the pictures.

"How many dead?" He didn't want the answer but he had to ask.

"Five confirmed so far."

Five? He'd thought there were only six men there. "So he got away alone?"

"No." Mycroft's voice was dry. "At least one body is female; the caterer hired for the evening and her assistant are both missing."

Cold apprehension became a soldier's nightmare. "I should," John said quietly, "have worked that out before I rang you."

"Not your fault." Sherlock was harsh. "My brother was well aware of the probability of collateral damage when he chose his course of action. I doubt that it kept him from sleep last night."

"You kept me awake last night, Sherlock." Mycroft's hand tightened around the folder. "You and Jim Moriarty. He kidnaps Doctor Watson and your response is to sleep with him. How am I meant to interpret that?"

"Please, Mycroft, spare me the tired euphemisms. I don't sleep with anyone."

"Fornicate with him, then. Is that better?"

"If you must. He didn't kidnap John, of course. Misdirection. It was more in the nature of an invitation."

"A welcome one, it seems." Mycroft's lips were pursed. "Three days, Sherlock, and what little morality that we've managed to persuade you to in long years has been stripped away. Three days. Another three days and is it still going to be Jim Moriarty that I need to neutralise?"

"Morality?" Sherlock was out of the armchair, voice raised. "Cant and hypocrisy! Is this performance for John's benefit, Mycroft? Because you're wasting your time. He has a much better idea of what's going on here than you do."

"So explain it to me, Sherlock, and you can have your folder."

"No." Sherlock turned away from his brother. "My plans don't need your approval. I'm not going to subject myself to your control, certainly not after the mess you've already made. Moriarty's my game and I'll win with or without your files."

Mycroft looked across at John, the obvious query on his face.

John had sought help from Mycroft last night, despite Sherlock's warnings, and innocent people had died. He shook his head slightly.

"Very well." Mycroft's voice had deepened. "If you won't work with me I will not give you a free hand in this, Sherlock. I will find Jim Moriarty myself, and I recommend that you are nowhere in the vicinity when I do so."

He slid the folder back into his neat black briefcase, stood up to leave."I'll be watching. Of course."

John drew the curtain aside to watch the silver car draw away.

"You haven't asked about Stephen," he said to the man behind him.

"No."

John turned to see Sherlock sweeping the grey coat around his shoulders.

"Where are you going?"

"To ensure that my brother is kept too busy to interfere. Sort out new phones; you'll find my numbers on your laptop. Text me when you're done."

"Text you on what?"

Sherlock flashed the pink phone in his hand, slipped it into his pocket and headed down the stairs. John sighed and started looking for his credit card.

Three hours later and John was still trying to figure out how to sync new phone and old address book while combatting a severe hangover when the news story changed.

He had not, he'd told himself, been wallowing. He didn't need to agonise about the missing women (the news had caught up with that, had played the interview with a distraught sister three times this hour already, each time making his headache just that bit worse); he had enough of his own guilt from last night without taking on Mycroft's. Still, he hadn't turned it off; even though nothing had happened for hours and the BBC was reduced to replaying old Waco footage and talking to "experts" in cult murder/suicides, the rolling news format kept you thinking that, any minute now, something important would happen.

"So how much of a headache for the authorities is this blog turning out to be?"

"It's hard to tell." The reporter looked genuinely pleased to have something new to report. "Martin Webb is a popular and respected London political blogger and 'Essexgate' is already trending on Twitter. It's the level of detail in the apparently highly confidential material he has posted which seems to be convincing readers that there never was a cult and that this is instead a black ops security operation gone wrong. People want answers, and the people here in Galley want them most."

Cue the same local background interviews that they'd been running all day. John frowned at the television.

His flatmate took that moment to come running up the stairs.

"Phone." Sherlock was flushed and looked pleased with himself.

"It's here, but I can't get this to work."

"Move over." Sherlock slid onto the sofa next to him, pushed him sideways." I'll do it."

John watched sure hands at the keyboard, conscious of the warmth of the leg against his. For once he was glad of Sherlock's usual disinterest.

"What were you doing?"

"Causing trouble."

"The leaked security files?"

"Very good. Yes."

John pulled back from him in dismay. "Sherlock! You can't toss classified material to a bunch of bloggers just to annoy your brother!"

"Careless talk costs lives?" Sherlock didn't seem concerned. "Hardly. I doubt that it will even cost Mycroft his job, unfortunately, but it will require all his attention to clean up the mess."

"You don't know anything!" John found the day's frustrations had boiled over. "You don't know what the consequences could be for the poor sods who have to carry out these missions and you don't care, any more than your brother cares about who ends up underneath, or Moriarty cares for anything. Just a bloody game to all of you."

He had stood up, backed off so he could shout. "I know men who fly planes like that one last night. It's not a game to them. Mycroft sent them out to kill women last night and now you want to have them publicly hung out to dry just to upset him. I don't know which of you I find more despicable."

Sherlock had turned away from the screen to consider him. "Very eloquent." His voice was dry.

"Sod eloquent, Sherlock. I mean it. People are dying and you're not even interested."

"Ah." Sherlock's fingers were pressed together lightly. "This is about Stephen."

"No it's not!" He turned to walk out, cursed, turned back. "Yes. All right then. Blood on my hands bothers you so little that you can't be arsed to ask how or why. What am I, a henchman?"

That amused Sherlock, which only angered John more.

"Just...fuck off, OK."

"Would telling me about it make you feel better?"

"Christ, Sherlock. No! It's not that easy." He thought for a moment of his therapist. "I just... you ought to care, at least, if I start murdering people."

He reconsidered off the man's silence. "No, maybe that wouldn't bother you in the least."

"It is unlikely to happen." Sherlock was frowning at him now. "You didn't murder Stephen. Manslaughter, probably. I imagine from the extent of your distress that it was unintentional but not entirely accidental. I didn't choose to distress you further by demanding details."

"Not entirely accidental. You could say that." John sat down in the armchair, facing Sherlock, trying not to shake. "I hit him over the head with a brick. He just asked me to get in the car. I panicked I guess."

He paused, looking down at the carpet. "No. I wasn't frightened. I was just angry. And drunk. Then," he brought his head up to meet Sherlock's expressionless face, his breath tight in his chest, "I forgot he was there and reversed over him. What do you think a jury would make of that one?"

"It's not going anywhere near a jury. Forget it." Sherlock's attention had returned to the computer. "He was heavily complicit in Moriarty's operations, which means that there was a great deal of blood on his hands. No-one else will miss him." He glanced up briefly. "And we needed the car. No loss. Really."

He had no right to be consoled, John knew. Still, the tightness in his chest had eased a little.

"You shouldn't have leaked that material, Sherlock. It could cause all sorts of damage." He felt obliged to one more protest on behalf of his ex-colleagues.

"I can't have Mycroft interfering. That would truly be dangerous. Trust me, the leak's no more than embarrassing. I wasn't able to get hold of the really significant papers at short notice."

He tossed John's new phone over. "Done. How about Angelo's?"

"Aren't we meant to be hunting Moriarty?"

"No need for that. Your little faux pas and Mycroft's fondness for loud bangs have had one positive effect, at least. He'll be making the next move, and soon."

Somehow John didn't find that thought particularly uplifting.

  
Despite Sherlock's prediction, the next four days were quiet. There were no more leaks and the press and public generally seemed to accept the official explanation that the explosion had been set off by the farmhouse occupants. John went back to work and to trying to persuade Sherlock not to wreck the house in his absence. He kept his hands and for the most part his eyes off his flatmate's body, although his thoughts were not so easily diverted.

It wouldn't have been so bad if it had just been memories of Sherlock dominating his late night fantasies. It wasn't. And not just memories either; he couldn't help but imagine the heat of the kiss that he had not been party to. He refused to get off on any fantasy that he couldn't keep Jim Moriarty out of; he had fallen asleep very late last night, disturbed and unsatisfied.

Two hours later he had woken in the throes of full-scale panic. The forgotten obstacle in the road had been a young child; he could hear the mother screaming as the car jolted over it, but when he looked back the body neatly bisected by the razor edged car wheels had been Sherlock's.

No chance of sleep after that; he got up, went downstairs for a drink. Sherlock was crouched over his laptop; he acknowledged John's arrival with a nod, went straight back to whatever he was doing. John curled up on the sofa with a cocoa and Sherlock's uncommunicative but reassuring presence and napped intermittently until morning.

No clinic on Sunday, at least. No sign of Moriarty either, and no Mycroft. By late afternoon the sun was slanting across the living room and despite the lack of sleep John was feeling slightly more cheerful.

"Don't you think," he started, passing Sherlock a coffee, "that your brother's distraction has probably worn off by now?"

"Doubtless. What about this one? What do you get if you cross an elephant with a goldfish?" Sherlock had picked up a rather ancient joke book in a second hand book shop the day before and was systematically trying the contents out on John. He claimed it as research, though into what he wasn't entirely specific. John thought it was probably into refined torture techniques and had refused to respond after the first couple of hours. Pleasant though it was to see Sherlock engaged in something that seemed to have no connection with either of their current nemeses, he was a little concerned about Mycroft.

"Isn't that going to be a problem?"

"Swimming trunks, apparently. A play on words, undoubtedly, but does it generate amusement? John?"

"Mycroft, Sherlock?"

"Don't worry. He'll have learned not to interfere." Sherlock was leafing through the book for more ammunition.

"Sherlock!" John had the satisfaction of seeing the man's head snap up at his tone. "If you have to lie to me, could you at least not insult my intelligence in the process?"

Sherlock flashed a smile. "Very well." He tossed the joke book onto the table. "I have no idea why Mycroft hasn't been in touch. I have no idea what is keeping Moriarty for so long. If the answer is "each other" then we me all be in serious trouble. I don't think it is. But you are quite right; my distraction of Mycroft has ceased to be of any real use, and I imagine that he is now quite intensely annoyed."

"So we're screwed, then?"

"I wouldn't go quite that far. My brother is usually manageable, with a little effort. It's Jim's patience that is worrying me. Waiting for his move may prove to have been a mistake."

He tipped his head on one side, considering John's reaction. "Next time I'll lie more effectively. You are getting little enough sleep as it is."

"Yeah." John sighed. What he wanted to ask was whether all of this had been worth it, but he didn't think he liked either of the possible answers. He fell back on practical instead. "So what can we do?"

"Stay alert. Expect the unexpected. Oh, and it's probably worth buying some more condoms." His smile went straight to John's groin.

Damn. "I suppose you don't fancy..." John started, aiming at casual and missing by about a mile. Sherlock's raised eyebrow was all the response he needed.

"Patience, John."

"Easy for you. Apparently."

"Yes." Sherlock sipped his coffee, unmoved.

"Right." John was not going to bolt to his bedroom like a desperate teenager. He had his pride about this. Instead he settled down to the Sunday papers, reading snippets out loud as usual in exchange for acerbic commentary, and his unhelpful arousal gradually subsided.

He was well into the sports pages when the doorbell rang. Sherlock glanced out to the pavement below.

"She's not sure if she has the right place, and she's nervous. Show her up, John."

John was not Sherlock's butler, but he was halfway down the stairs before he formulated a complaint. His hand went automatically to check the gun concealed in his waistband before he opened the door.

"Hello?"

"Excuse me." The lady was in her forties, without make-up, face pale around dark eyes. "Does Doctor John Watson live here?"

"Yes. That's me." A patient? "Can I help you?"

She peered at him, apparently taken aback at the identification. "Oh. Um. Do you mind if I come in?"

If this was Moriarty's idea of an assassin, John felt he could probably handle it. "Of course. Come upstairs."

Sherlock stood as they came in, showed the lady to the armchair with politeness. She glanced between him and John, uncertain.

"My flatmate, Sherlock Holmes."John thought that he recognised her unease. "I think the lady would like some privacy, Sherlock."

"Of course." Sherlock nodded, grave. "My commiserations on your loss. Your son?"

She nodded, hand tugging at the hankerchief in her pocket. Spoke to John, "Did he know Richard?"

"Sherlock is just very observant." John watched him retreat to his bedroom on the far side of the kitchen, door ajar.

"Now, Mrs?" he paused, politely.

"Telling. Joanne Telling." She was clearly waiting for a reaction, but he didn't recognise the name.

"And what can I do for you, Mrs Telling?"

She was frowning now, confused. "It's Richard. I thought you might not know. I didn't know if anyone had told you. No-one seemed to know who you were."

"Richard was a patient of mine?" He didn't recall the name but there were so many.

"No! I mean, maybe he was. Richard Telling. You wrote to him?" She was twisting uneasily now. "You are John Watson? I thought you'd be younger."

"I'm sorry. I don't recall writing to anyone of that name." He tried to sound reassuring but it clearly wasn't helping.

She glanced over her shoulder at the kitchen, dropped her voice. "You don't want him to know?"

"Sherlock? No, I'm sorry, Mrs Telling, I have no idea what you're talking about." Grief was supposed to turn people's minds occasionally, but he couldn't figure out where she might be coming from.

"Oh God," She was angry now. "You wrote all those things to him and now you don't even care that he's been killed." She pulled open her handbag, dropped papers on the table. "I've read your letters."

John picked up a couple of sheets. Handwritten on headed notepaper, of the sort he'd never bought for this address. Doctor John Watson, his professional qualifications, 221B Baker Street.

The letters were neatly written; nothing like his handwriting. He read a couple of pages; playful, affectionate but not explicit. Letters to a boyfriend. To Richard, from John.

John looked up at Mrs Telling's tight lips, her tears, and shook his head. "I don't know..." he started. How on earth had this happened?

The same way everything bizarre around him happened, he guessed. He raised his voice. "Sherlock!"

"I'm sorry." he went on to the grieving mother, quietly. "Someone has played a very cruel trick on you. I've never seen these letters before, and I didn't know your son."

"No." She was shaking her head, starting to cry in earnest. "Why would anyone do that?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry." He wondered what on earth he could say.

Sherlock was at his elbow, reaching out to finger one of the sheets of paper. "How did Richard die, Mrs Telling?"

She took a breath. "It was just outside his flat, in Islington. Tuesday night. The driver didn't stop, the police said. They said...drinking..." she dissolved in tears again, unable to finish.

"Do you have a photograph of Richard?"

"Yes. Yes of course." She took out her purse, hands quivering. A fair haired lad in graduation gown and cap standing by a tree and smiling at the camera.

Stephen.

For a moment John lost track of everything but the nausea. Then he felt Shserlock's fingers digging painfully tight around his elbow.

"That's Warwick campus!" Sherlock sounded inanely delighted. "I had my picture taken in almost that same spot."

"You went there as well?" A hint of interest under the tears.

"Politics and economics, 2001."

"Richard studied politics too!" She managed a smile. "He only graduated two years ago though."

"I expect Mrs Telling would appreciate a cup of tea, John." A hidden, hard shove. John fled gratefully into the kitchen. Behind him Sherlock was leading their visitor smoothly into details of Richard's- Stephen's- life.

For a moment he wondered if the woman was an actor, but he was too familiar with the debilitating effects of sudden bereavement. He didn't think they were faked. Sherlock would know.

Why bother to fake it, anyway? Stephen was a young man; of course his death would be some parent's nightmare. All Moriarty had to do was to forge a couple of letters. What grief stricken mother could resist meeting her son's adoring lover? His murderer. Pure Greek tragedy, this.

The feel of the brick in his hand, his foot on the accelerator as he tore back up the driveway; it wasn't enough that he hadn't intended this. Joanne Telling would know that. He knew it. Moriarty knew it, even if Sherlock didn't.

What could he do? Apologise? Tell her the truth? Yes, your son was killed by a drunk in a car but, you see, we needed the car and his employer had been quite annoying. Or make tea while Sherlock lied to her just as Moriarty had already done?

He made tea. Stood staring down at the steaming mugs, incapable of picking any of them up, absolutely unable to face the woman again. He could hear Sherlock's voice, mostly low, occasionally lifted in a quiet laugh that was nothing like his normal amusement. Mrs Telling's replies were almost inaudible. After what felt like hours standing in the kitchen he was relieved to see Sherlock's head round the door.

"Thanks, John. I'll take those." Sherlock's gaze was considerably sharper than his voice. John spread his hands, helplessly, and Sherlock gestured towards his open bedroom door. "Just keep out of the way," he murmured, not particularly gently.

John lay flat on Sherlock's bed, cataloguing the things that had gone wrong. If he'd never got in the car. If he'd walked out when he found that he could. If he'd tried to persuade Sherlock not to stay. If he hadn't drunk so much. If he'd not stormed out into the dark. If he hadn't over-reacted to Stephen. If he'd remembered, God, if he'd only remembered that he'd left an unconscious man in the roadway.

If he'd ripped Jim bloody Moriarty's head off any of the chances he'd had. That wasn't a mistake he'd make again. Whatever Sherlock's game was, he was going to ruin it next time that man was close enough to kill with his bare hands.

Evenutally he heard footsteps going down the stairs, then up again. He lay still, eyes closed, wishing the world would go away. Instead the bed rocked as Sherlock threw himself down next to John.

"Oh, Jim," Sherlock crooned, delighted, "you have slipped up this time. You should never have sent your pawn to my door."

"She's not a pawn," John snarled. "She's a bereaved mother. Christ, Sherlock!"

Sherlock rolled over to face him. "To Moriarty she's a pawn. He's using her. I presume your guilt hasn't blinded you that far."

"No."

"Well, wringing my hands about how appallingly she's been treated won't help her. Using Moriarty's errors of judgement against him, on the other hand, may well do."

He raised an eyebrow at John. "Or you could trot off to Scotland Yard and turn yourself in, making me at best an accessory to manslaughter, of course, which would pretty much leave Jim Moriarty free to do what he likes to anyone."

John wanted to shout at him "You said no-one would miss him!" But he'd known all along that that was a reassurance that he had no right to take.

"She doesn't get justice, then." He'd known that, too.

"Moriary sent her here to get exactly this reaction from you."

John had nothing to say to that, so he rolled onto his side away from Sherlock, closed his eyes, tired and momentarily unwilling to move.

The fingers in his hair were unexpected. He tensed for a moment automatically, barely relaxed as Sherlock's thumb pressed against the back of his neck.

"What are you doing?" Because caresses had not been part of anything between them so far and he'd already been manipulated far too much for one day.

Sherlock's mouth, up close to his neck. "For a military man you're finding this remarkably difficult."

He pulled away, sat up. "It's meant to be difficult. I killed someone, Sherlock. Stupidly and unnecessarily. She's never going to get over it; it's going to take me a good deal more than five days. It's got nothing to do with soldiering."

"You're no good to me like this."

Sometimes Sherlock took John's breath away in quite unexpected ways.

"Tough."

He reconsidered off Sherlock's clear frustration. "Look. This isn't your fault. I mean, God knows I wish you'd made a few different choices, but I chose to go along with them and this...this death is entirely mine. I can't pretend it's OK."

He paused, sighed. "But if you want help hunting down the man who sent that poor woman to our door, I can do that. Tell me what you've found out."

He raised a hand just before Sherlock could speak. "I'm out of patience with games. This time we bring him in."

"That's always been the idea, John. I'm not as easily distracted as he thinks."

John nodded, somewhat sceptical. "Just so we're clear."

"He may occasionally underestimate me, but he's still the most difficult of opponents. And I do intend to continue keeping you alive in the process, which, incidentally, has not got any easier. It may not be...direct."

"Is that a roundabout way of telling me that you're going to have sex with him again?"

Sherlock flashed a smile. "That approach is progressing nicely."

"Progressing where, exactly? Seems to me that he's getting everything he wants."

"Good." Sherlock rolled off the bed onto his feet. "That's how it's meant to seem. Now, I imagine that your conscience requires you to face the gory details of Stephen's death."

"I guess." He didn't want that, but, yes, he ought to know. "What did she tell you about it?"

"The post-mortem report was completed yesterday; coroner's hearing will be opened tomorrow. Standard RTA procedure which means that no-one has connected him with Moriarty. Mycroft will have marked her visit, though, may be able to identify her. We need to move quickly. I want a copy of that report before the inquest."

He hissed in frustration. "This would be so much easier if I could use Lestrade. My brother's scrutiny is inconvenient to say the least. I can't do anything that draws attention to this case."

He was pacing, thinking. Turned to John. "Out with it."

"What?"

"The idea you've just had."

"It's a bit far fetched. But...how's your inner bureaucrat?"

The consultant pathologist's secretary was no match for Sherlock. John stood back and tried not to feel too sorry for her. This had, after all, been his idea.

"You will just have to tell Mr Resner than his hospital licence has been suspended until the language assessment has taken place."

"I can't." Her eyes were wide. "He'll have my job. Really, I didn't get any of the emails about it. I told you."

"The policy comes in from tomorrow morning. No exceptions. If your consultant has not had a written language assessment, he will not be able to carry out his duties. This is a very important issue that has been too long overlooked. People have died, Ms Townes, as a result of ungrammatical reports."

"But he's a pathologist! They're mostly already dead!"

"No exceptions." Sherlock turned to go.

"Look. You said tomorrow morning. Can't you do it now? Then there won't be a problem."

"Now?" Sherlock considered the possibility. "Only if you can provide me with a sample of text created within the last 48 hours that meets all the criteria."

"I've got..." She typed something, peered at the screen. "Some letters."

"Minimum three thousand words."

"Oh. Oh, there's a postmortem from yesterday. Would that do?"

"I have no idea." Sherlock said, exasperated. "I am not a," he glanced down at his papers, "pathologist. Was it created to provide specialist information for decision making purposes?"

"I guess so. It's for the police."

"It may do then. Print it out and my assistant will take it down to the assessment team. They may have time to assess it. If not, Mr Resner will hear from us in the morning."

He looked down at his papers. "What's the quickest way from here to Gastrology?"

The taxi driver must have thought them drunk from the way they giggled all the way home.

"She won't tell anyone, because she thinks she nearly got him suspended." John couldn't quite believe it had worked.

"And even if she finds out that there never was a written language assessment, she won't tell anyone because she'll have to admit that she gave us the report. Beautiful, John. Inspired."

"I couldn't have done it, though. You were marvellous; utterly convincing."

"Yes. I rather think I was." Sherlock's self satisfied smile had John in stitches again.

Back at the flat, watching Sherlock read the purloined papers sobered him. He picked up the discarded papers as Sherlock dropped them, started to read. Be a doctor. Be some use.

Sherlock waited for him to finish. "Well? What do you think?"

"I think." He paused. Far too much emotion to judge this right. "I think he was dead before the car went over him."

"Of course he was. There are half a dozen facts pointing to that conclusion. Our Mr Resner was a stickler for recording accurate observations. Just an idiot when drawing conclusions."

He waved at the papers in disgust. "No injuries to the legs at all, and he still concludes that the victim was knocked down by a car and hit his head on the road, because that's what he 'knew' happened. No blood drawn into the lungs because the man was dead before his chest was crushed. It's the only conclusion fitting the observations."

"Does it matter?" There had been photographs. Handsome, well-spoken Stephen hadn't been at all pretty when they found him.

"I doubt that anyone else will read the report in sufficient depth to argue with an experienced forensic pathologist, which means that his death is unlikely to be investigated further than a search for the presumed car in Islington. That's good news for you."

"Yes." He supposed it must be.

"John. There were armed men at that farmhouse. Moriarty kills without compunction, and it was reasonable to conclude that he'd already got what he wanted from you. Anyone he sent after you was prima facie a lethal threat. You may think that you overreacted drunkenly but your subconscious was primed by exactly the right data when you hit him, and there's not much finesse in a brick. We've established that the car injuries are irrelevant. It was a combat decision, John."

Just like that. John shook his head. "It can't be that simple."

"On this occasion it is. You drew a conclusion on partial evidence and your own emotional state. You have new evidence. Re-evaluate the situation."

John looked down at the photos. They were bad enough, but they were real. The stuff in his head had been vaguer yet far worse. This was the man who had worked for Moriarty. Somewhere along the line he'd lost that, thinking only of an innocent dead.

"A combat decision. I can try to think of it that way," he conceded.

"Good. I imagine that you would have found the funeral tomorrow distressing otherwise."

John turned his head sharply. "Funeral? Why would we go to the funeral?"

"Mrs Telling is widowed and Richard was her only close family. No, don't start that again, John. He was, from everything she was trying to conceal from me, a horribly ungrateful child; he got involved in fraud while he was at university and she ended up footing the bill. And certainly none of the salary from the high powered job as PR for an import/export company that he was so proud of came her way. Just Moriarty's type, your Stephen.

"Anyway, he had dropped all his old uni acquaintances on making it big in organised crime, his new friends are nowhere to be seen and his poor mother is dreading an empty church. So as a fellow Warwick alumnus I offered to come and represent the old alma mater. As my partner naturally enough you'll come too. She was terribly disappointed about the letters, by the way; she thought you sounded lovely."

"You didn't actually go to Warwick?"

"Good lord, no. Politics and economics? Utter drivel."

John shook his head. "Just checking. Why are we actually going?"

"Moriarty has gone to ground again and I want to find him before my brother does. Also it will show Jim that he's underestimated you again. Tough as nails is the general impression we're aiming at."

"Won't that just make him try harder?" John wasn't at all sure about that plan.

"As long as he's trying to break you or seduce you or both, he's not thinking about having you murdered." Sherlock wasn't smiling now. "He thinks you're my vulnerability; we have to keep him from simply going for the kill."

Tha hollow feeling was back. John didn't like to remember the poolside, how helpless he had been. He seized on a distraction. "Am I?"

"Are you what?"

"Your vulnerability. I thought you weren't interested, like that."

Sherlock looked momentarily uncomfortable. "What's important is that he thinks you are."

"No, what's important to me is what you think, Sherlock. I'm not after any profound declarations here. I just think that if I'm actually any sort of weak spot I'd like to know before someone covers me with explosives again to exploit it."

Sherlock scooped the postmortem papers up, dumped them back in a single heap on the floor. "He wouldn't be wasting his time with you otherwise, I assure you."

Before John managed to think of a reply to that Sherlock was off across the kitchen and a moment later his bedroom door was firmly shut.

So. That wasn't exactly a profound declaration, no. Sherlock didn't like being vulnerable; hardly a surprise. Sherlock didn't feel the need to be polite about it, ditto. Sherlock didn't do relationships; that much was becoming increasingly obvious.

What was he doing with a man who wouldn't even touch him unless he was thinking about someone else? He knew better than this.

John pulled the gun out of his waistband, placed it gently on the coffee table, sat on the couch and looked at it. This was his home. He shouldn't need to carry a loaded gun. After a while he half stood so that he could reach into his back pocket, chucked the wrapped condoms down next to the weapon. Three of them. Fancy that.

He was still contemplating the evidence of the state of his current existence when Sherlock emerged again.

"Meet me downstairs in eight minutes. Don't bring any of that." He swept downstairs without further explanation. John sighed, started to unload the gun in order to put it away.

Out on the pavement he looked round, finally spotted Sherlock waving from the opposite side of Baker Street. By the time he'd made his way across the busy carriageway Sherlock had flagged down a taxi and was holding the door open for him.

"Number 18. I'll pick you up later; don't try to make your way back on your own. It's not safe."

John found himself unceremoniously shoved into the back seat, a carrier bag dumped on his lap.

"What?" he tried. "Where?" But the door had closed and the taxi was moving out into the traffic. He could aske the driver where they were going but he suspected that the address would mean no more than the number had. He could ask to be taken back home but he wasn't ready for the conversation he needed to have with Sherlock.

The carrier bag contained four bottles of beer and a rather expensive bottle of red wine. That kept him wondering all the way to Crystal Palace.

Number 18 was one of a new block of apartments in a leafy road, on the ground floor with its own entrance. John rang the bell, waited, shifting from foot to foot. When the door opened he gave what he realised, embarrassingly, must have been an audible sigh of relief.

"Sherlock said you'd be over." Lestrade stepped aside for him to go in.

"He didn't happen to mention why, did he?" John wondered briefly if he was meant to talk to the inspector about what was going on with Moriarty. No, the bottles suggested that this was meant to be a social call.

"No. You know him; three word text. I did think about calling him back but I had some stuff to do, then you arrived."

Stuff, John guessed, glancing into the living room, was the pile of papers and DVDs pushed into the corner of the room.

"It's a bit of a mess, I'm afraid."

"That's OK." John sniffed. "That smells good."

"Have you eaten? I can put some more spaghetti on; there's plenty of sauce." Lestrade was clearly as unsure as he was of the purpose of John's arrival.

"That would be great. I've brought this." He pulled out the wine. "And some beer." Lestrade was clearly struck by the wine; John felt some clarification was needed. "Sherlock bought it, actually. This was his idea. I'm not sure..."

"No, that's good. Good, really. Can you open the wine while I finish the meal?"

They carried plates into the living room. Startled green eyes caught John's, and the tortoiseshell cat disappeared behind the sofa.

"She's OK, will be out in a minute." Lestrade seemed to have relaxed. John took a quick look round. Just the Inspector and the cat, he imagined. The TV was showing Sky Sports; some foreign football league.

"I can turn that off."

"No, it's fine." It was; it gave them both something to watch while they ate. The wine was good; not up to Moriarty's table, but then the company was infinitely better.

Greg, as he insisted John call him, took the empty plates out, came back and looked over at John.

"Have you two argued...no, forget that. Just being nosy. None of my business."

When John didn't volunteer anything beyond a shrug he moved easily enough onto other topics. By the time they'd dissected England's rugby performance and established that they both liked thrillers but didn't get to the cinema often enough they'd finished the wine and had moved onto the beer and John was feeling more relaxed than he'd done at any time since Jim Moriarty had turned up in his bedroom. The cat had reappeared and after some coaxing had settled down in John's lap, purring.

Inevitably the conversation got onto work, eventually, and onto Sherlock. John didn't say much; just enough to encourage Lestrade to talk. He seemed quite happy to relate endless tales of the man's brilliance and the difficulties in working with him. If he remembered that he was talking about the man John was supposedly sleeping with, he didn't seem to let it restrain him. This was, after all, Sherlock they were talking about. Social niceties didn't seem to apply.

John admired, laughed and commiserated as appropriate, but he was listening out for something, never heard it. Eventually he interrupted a story to ask.

"Well, no. I guess not. We sort of assumed...didn't he tell you?"

"No. We haven't really talked about that sort of thing." John admitted. They should have done.

Lestrade was clearly reining in his curiosity. "No, then. Not that I know of. He's always been quite aggressively single, I suppose." He smiled over at John. "It's good, seeing him with someone. Good for him."

"I'm not so sure about that." Off Greg's expression he tried to explain without exposing anything. "I'm not sure that I don't encourage him to...stuff. Without meaning to."

"No. I'm sure that's not true. He's been clean since he met you, for a start, hasn't he?"

"Clean?" Lestrade clearly wasn't talking about the state of their kitchen. "Clean from what?"

"Didn't you...oh shit. Look, I shouldn't be talking about any of this. Just forget it."

That was hardly going to be easy. "Clean from what? Come on, Greg. If you know, surely I ought to?"

"Well." Lestrade hesitated, then took a swig of the beer and started. "It's cocaine. Not that I'm precious about the stuff; there must be several thousand lines snorted in London on a Saturday night and mostly I guess it doesn't do that much harm. But Sherlock used a needle and as far as I could tell he did it alone."

Now that he'd started he seemed determined to continue. "Well, he didn't want to talk about why he did it and he wasn't interested in hearing about the risks. I bullied him a bit but all I think I did was make him slightly less blatant about doing it. He'd stop for a few weeks, then go back again for a couple of days. Not addicted, as they rate these things; as far as I could tell he just liked it."

He shrugged at John. "Seems to me he's been clean since you moved in, But you're the doctor; I guess you'd know."

"I've not seen any evidence of it." John doubted that it was all his influence though. Had Sherlock merely switched one dangerous hobby for another?

"Maybe I should have kept quiet. Ancient history, probably. I guess it was sort of a confidence." Greg was uncomfortable again. "If you fall out over it..." He trailed off.

"No. I needed to know. It sort of explains some stuff for me."

"Yeah, well. Don't think you're not good for him. Though how you put up with him every day I can't imagine."

"It's not that hard." That bit really wasn't.

The conversation lapsed gradually into a comfortable silence. When the doorbell rang John glanced at his watch, was surprised to see that it ws past midnight.

"Coming in?" Lestrade at the door.

"The cab's waiting." Sherlock's familiar brusque voice.

John nodded at Lestrade as he got his coat. "Thanks. For the meal, I mean."

"No problem. Drop by again sometime, if you'd like."

"Yeah. Yeah I might. Thanks."

In the taxi he was silent for a few minutes.

"The Inspector's been telling you all about my sordid habits, then." Sherlock seemed amused.

"How did you...?"

"You've glanced at my arm three times already, though what you expect to see through three layers of clothing baffles me."

"No doubt you know how I feel about it as well, then." Irritated, mainly, overlaying worry. Why couldn't the man take a little care with himself? "Look. I'm not in a position to tell you what to do. But I don't see why I should have to live with the stuff. I'm telling you now that the day I find recreational narcotics into our flat, I will move out."

"It won't be a problem." Sherlock sounded unconcerned.

"So was that why you sent me round there? To find that out?"

"No. You were brooding again and I still had a lead from the mother to follow up. It was a suitable solution."

"Greg was babysitting me, then?" John felt rather put out.

"If you like."

"He thinks we're a couple, you know.'

"Not even Lestrade can always be wrong." Sherlock was still relaxed.

John parsed this one. "You don't think we're a couple, surely?"

Sherlock had turned to watch him as the car went past the bright street lights. "We live together. You perform most of the domestic chores for both of us. We work together, especially when breaking the law. You shot a man for me; I let myself be kidnapped for you. Other people have taken to referring to us as a single unit. And we have had sex moreorless with each other three times in the last week."

"Oh." That was something of a surprise. "I didn't get the impression that you did relationships."

"I don't "do" them. But I draw my conclusions from the available facts. On most functional, and for that matter most legal definitions, this would consititute a relationship. If that affects your pension then you should probably declare it."

John snorted. "Only if you desperately want my survivor benefits. I don't think they're enough to worry about." There was something rather wonderful about the idea that Sherlock considered them a couple, even if he thought there was likely to be rather more domestic chores and shooting people and rather less sex than he would consider optimum.

"I probably ought to indicate at this point that I regard Valentine's Day cards rather as you do recreational drugs. It would be a great pity if I had to find somewhere else; Baker Street is near perfect for my work."

"Believe me, that won't be a problem either." Not now he'd been warned, at least.

John curled up in bed that night and slept better than he had all week. The gun and the condoms lay in the second drawer down beside the bed, temporarily forgotten.


End file.
